The Korea Times: LG to make another Nexus phone

The LG-built Google Nexus 4 certainly gave South Korea’s other mobile manufacturer a new lease of life, and the company recently made a return to the top-five smartphone players after a three-quarter absence.

Building on that success, word on the street suggests LG is in talks with Google to build yet another Nexus smartphone – that’s despite all the issues surrounding supply of the Google Nexus 4.

While the Google Nexus 4 was incredibly well received, largely on account of the insanely reasonable price, recurring supply issues left a bad taste in the mouth.

Google appeared to blame LG, describing supply as “scarce and erratic”, though LG explained: “As with any sales process, LG supplies product quantities against partners'/customers' (i.e. retailers, operators etc) forecasts. Demand via the Play Store has been very high in this instance.”

LG is expected to launch a 32GB LTE-friendly Google Nexus 4 at I/O in a few weeks, but we figured that might mark the end of the LG/Nexus saga (questionable rumours of an LG-built Google Nexus 5 aside).

Not so according to sources of The Korea Times. TKT writes: “Currently, the consumer electronics arm of LG Group is working with Internet-giant Google to make another Nexus-branded Google Android smartphone.”

On the subject of a recent meeting between LG and Google, the sources add: “They exchanged views about the latest mega trend in the global information technology (IT) industry. They also discussed how to form an alliance in futuristic projects as part of the big picture.

“LG needs help from Google to continue its business momentum in smartphones and TVs. That’s why Koo met Page.”